Carter v. Fleming

• Decision Date: 08 January 2018
• Docket Number: No. 17-6461,17-6461
• Citation: 879 F.3d 132
• Parties: Aaron CARTER, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. L.J. FLEMING ; M. Broyles, Food Service Manager ; S. Stallal, Food Service Supervisor ; Ms. Gregg, State Dietician for the VDOC, Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

879 F.3d 132

Aaron CARTER, Plaintiff–Appellant,

v.L.J. FLEMING ; M. Broyles, Food Service Manager ; S. Stallal, Food Service Supervisor ; Ms. Gregg, State Dietician for the VDOC, Defendants–Appellees.

No. 17-6461

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

Argued: November 15, 2017

Decided: January 8, 2018

ARGUED: David Michael Shapiro, NORTHWESTERN PRITZKER SCHOOL OF LAW, Chicago, Illinois, for Appellant. Matthew Robert McGuire, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees. ON BRIEF: Mark R. Herring, Attorney General, Stuart A. Raphael, Solicitor General, Trevor S. Cox, Deputy Solicitor General, OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY GENERAL OF VIRGINIA, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellees.

Before TRAXLER and FLOYD, Circuit Judges, and J. Michelle CHILDS, United States District Judge for the District of South Carolina, sitting by designation.

Reversed and remanded by published opinion. Judge Traxler wrote the opinion in which Judge Floyd and Judge Childs joined.

TRAXLER, Circuit Judge:

Aaron Carter brought a pro se § 1983 action primarily alleging violations of his rights under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act ("RLUIPA"), see 42 U.S.C. §§ 2000cc, et seq. , as the result of his former prison's failure to accommodate his religious dietary needs. The district court granted summary judgment against him, and Carter appeals. Because we conclude that the court erred in granting summary judgment, we reverse and remand to the district court for further proceedings.

I.

Carter is a prisoner in the Virginia Department of Corrections. Because his religion (Nation of Islam) has certain dietary restrictions, Carter participated in a prison program known as Common Fare (the "Program"). Under the Program, the prison provided "an appropriate religious diet that meets or exceeds minimum daily nutritional requirements" in exchange for the prisoner's agreement "to abide by all requirements of th[e] program," including not "eating ... or possessing unauthorized food items from the main line." J.A. 112. On November 26, 2015, Carter was observed accepting a Thanksgiving Day lunch tray from the main line instead of a Common Fare meal. He was suspended from the Program for one year as a result. Carter filed a grievance within the prison system challenging the suspension on the basis that the Common Fare agreement was already void when he took the meal. He specifically claimed that the prison had violated the Common Fare agreement by changing the menu on October 1, 2015, to include items, such as fried foods, that violated the dietary rules of the Nation of Islam. Carter failed to obtain relief, however.

Carter subsequently brought suit in federal district court alleging violations of his religious freedom rights under the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause and the RLUIPA.¹ He named as defendants the warden and two other officials at the Wallens Ridge State Prison ("WARSP"), where he was incarcerated, as well as the VDOC dietician. He sought declaratory and injunctive relief, compensatory and punitive damages, and attorneys' fees.

The district court granted summary judgment against Carter, finding that he had "fail[ed] to disprove the reasonableness of the suspension policy," J.A. 163, and that he had not created a genuine factual dispute as to whether his religious exercise was substantially burdened by the content of the Common Fare menu, considering that all foods on the Common Fare menu were halal and kosher.²

II.

Carter argues that the district court erred in granting summary judgment against him on his First Amendment and RLUIPA claims. He contends that each of these claims encompasses challenges both to the changes to the Common Fare menu and the suspension and that, with regard to each aspect of the claims, the district court erred in granting summary judgment.

In response, Defendants argue that Carter's claims do not encompass challenges to the suspension. And because Carter was suspended from the Program at the time he filed his complaint, Defendants maintain that he did not have standing to challenge the content of the Common Fare menu. Defendants also argue that even if Carter's claims do encompass challenges to the suspension, such challenges have become moot to the extent he seeks prospective relief. Finally, Defendants contend that the district court correctly ruled that they were entitled to summary judgment on the merits of Carter's claims to the extent that they challenge the Common Fare menu change.

On reply, Carter maintains that because his claims encompass challenges to the suspension, he actually did have standing to challenge the menu change. And he denies that his request for prospective relief from the suspension is now moot.

We will address these arguments seriatim.

III.

We begin with justiciability. Article III gives federal courts jurisdiction only over "[c]ases" and "[c]ontroversies." U.S. Const. art. III, § 2, cl. 1. "One essential aspect of this requirement is that any person invoking the power of a federal court must demonstrate standing to do so," which "requires the litigant to prove that he has suffered a concrete and particularized injury that is fairly traceable to the challenged conduct, and is likely to be redressed by a favorable judicial decision." Hollingsworth v. Perry , 570 U.S. 693, 133 S.Ct. 2652, 2661, 186 L.Ed.2d 768 (2013). "To qualify as a case fit for federal-court adjudication, an actual controversy must be extant at all stages of review, not merely at the time the complaint is filed." Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona , 520 U.S. 43, 67, 117 S.Ct. 1055, 137 L.Ed.2d 170 (1997) (internal quotation marks omitted). Accordingly, a case is moot "when the issues presented are no longer ‘live’ or the parties lack a legally cognizable interest in the outcome." Chafin v. Chafin , 568 U.S. 165, 133 S.Ct. 1017, 1023, 185 L.Ed.2d 1 (2013) (some internal quotation marks omitted). "Th[ese] requirement[s] appl[y] independently to each form of relief sought." McBryde v. Committee to Review Circuit Council Conduct & Disability Orders of Judicial Conference of U.S ., 264 F.3d 52, 55 (D.C. Cir. 2001) (citing Friends of the Earth v. Laidlaw , 528 U.S. 167, 185, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000) ).

A.

Because Defendants' argument that Carter lacked standing to challenge the content of the Common Fare menu was based on the premise that Carter's claims do not encompass challenges to the suspension, we begin by construing Carter's complaint.

Importantly, when a plaintiff raises a civil rights issue and files a complaint pro se, the court must construe his pleadings liberally. See Smith v. Smith , 589 F.3d 736, 738 (4th Cir. 2009). We conclude that Carter's First Amendment and RLUIPA claims, liberally construed, include challenges to the suspension. The gravamen of Carter's claims is that Defendants are "imposing a substantial burden on [his] religious exercise" by serving religiously inappropriate foods on the Common Fare menu in violation of the Common Fare agreement. J.A. 9. The complaint outlines how the content of the Common Fare menu beginning October 1, 2015, had this effect. But the complaint also provides a full description of the facts relating to the suspension and reiterates Carter's argument that after the Common Fare menu change, the "agreement did not exist, because you cannot expect the original agreement to be in force when the policy of the agreement has been violated." J.A. 8. Carter's complaint requests, among other things, "a declaration that the acts and omissions described herein violate[ ] his rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States." J.A. 10 (emphasis added). It appears that both the Defendants in their memorandum in support of summary judgment and the district court in granting summary judgment interpreted Carter's complaint as challenging the suspension. See J.A. 46 (argument in Defendants' memorandum in support of their summary judgment motion asserting, "Carter willingly violated the Common Fare agreement ... by taking a regular lunch tray instead of a Common Fare tray. Neither the Common Fare menu nor Carter's suspension violates his First Amendment and RLUIPA rights."); J.A. 163 (conclusion in district court opinion that Carter "fails to disprove the reasonableness of the suspension policy"). We give Carter's complaint the same logical reading and construe it as challenging both obstacles he described as standing between him and a religiously appropriate diet. Accordingly, we conclude that his request for "a declaration that the acts and omissions described herein violate[ ] his rights under the Constitution and laws of the United States," J.A. 10 (emphasis added), must be understood as challenging the suspension as well as the content of the Common Fare menu, so that if Carter prevailed, he could once again receive meals that complied with his dietary restrictions.

B.

Having identified the claims Carter asserts, we now turn to the justiciability issues Defendants raise.

1.

First, we do not agree with Defendants that Carter lacked standing to seek prospective relief regarding the content of the Common Fare menu because he had already been suspended from the Program when he filed his complaint. There can be no doubt that Carter alleges injury from the change in the Common Fare menu.³ Defendants nevertheless argue that declaratory or injunctive relief regarding the content of the Common Fare menu could not redress this injury because Carter was suspended from the Program when he filed his complaint. Defendants' argument does not account for the fact that Carter's complaint seeks to overturn the suspension, thus creating the prospect that this hurdle could be overcome. See Equity in Athletics, Inc. v. Department of Educ. , 639 F.3d 91, 100 (4th Cir. 2011) ("[N]o explicit guarantee of redress to a plaintiff is required to demonstrate a plaintiff's standing."); see also ...